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Device freezing at the "DEVICE IS STARTING..." screen when booting

This article explains why a RealWear device can get stuck at the "DEVICE IS STARTING" screen during boot and how to resolve it.

Revision Date: September 29, 2026

Applies to: RealWear Arc 3, RealWear Navigator 520, RealWear Navigator Z1

If your device shows a black screen, or stays on the DEVICE IS STARTING screen for an unusually long time after booting or syncing with Ari Business Cloud, it is possible that a Home Screen background image is causing the system to crash during initialization.

The recommended resolution for a Home Screen background image is 854 × 456 pixels. Images larger than this offer no visual benefit on the device display and may exceed the memory limit Android allows for a single image, which is 100 MB. This limit is based on the image's resolution (its width and height in pixels), not just its file size, so even a small file can exceed it if the resolution is very high. When the Home Screen image is too large, the launcher crashes as soon as it tries to display it, restarts, and crashes again, which slows the device down or leaves it stuck at startup.

Step 1: Remove the image from Ari Business Cloud

If the image file was pushed to the device through a Home Screen configuration in Ari Business Cloud, sign in, open the Home Screen configuration for the affected device or group, and remove the image. This prevents it from syncing back onto the device after it is fixed.

It is also possible, though unlikely, that the image was added to the device manually. In that case, there will be nothing to remove in Ari Business Cloud, and you can continue to the next step.

Step 2: Give the device a moment to start

Allow up to one minute for the DEVICE IS STARTING screen to load. If the device gets past this screen, overall performance may be limited because of the large image.

The device may not respond to voice commands. This is likely because WearHF (the hands-free voice interface) has not initialized properly as a result of the crash. If this happens, you can try using Vysor to view the device screen on a computer and click around the device to navigate it.

If more than a minute has passed and the device is still on this screen, it is unlikely to recover on its own, and you will need to perform a factory reset (see below).

If the device gets past the startup screen

You can delete the image file manually:

  1. On the device, go to Settings > Connected devices > USB and enable File transfer.
  2. Connect the device to a computer and browse to Internal shared storage > RealWear > com.realwear.launcher > config.
  3. Delete any file in the config folder.
  4. Reboot the device.

If the device remains frozen at the startup screen

If the device is still stuck on the DEVICE IS STARTING screen after one minute, perform a factory reset using Recovery Mode. Follow the steps in How to Factory Reset your Navigator device using Recovery Mode. This process also applies to the Arc 3 and Navigator Z1.

Once the reset is complete, set up the device as you would on initial use. Because the oversized image has been removed from the Home Screen configuration, the device will not receive it again and the crash should not return.

Note: A factory reset erases all data on the device. Make sure any files you need are backed up before you begin, if possible.

Preventing the issue: Before uploading a custom Home Screen image to Ari Business Cloud, resize it to 854 × 456 pixels. Any image with a larger resolution is too large and risks causing a startup crash.

For more support, contact support@realwear.com